By Elias Savada. Director Flavio Alves’s indie feature The Garden Left Behind is all about dreamers, whether they are transgender people looking for acceptance, or illegal immigrants hoping that armed authorities are more than an arm’s distance away. Alves seriously explores the trials and tribulations of a young Mexican trans […]
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The Beast Survives: Ivan Silvestrini on Dragonheart Vengeance (2020)
Tom Ue
February 27, 2020
By Tom Ue. The opening of Dragonheart Vengeance (2020) juxtaposes two seemingly unrelated narratives. First, we learn of the appearance of the dragon Siveth (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter) in a war-torn kingdom. Where formerly it was greeted as a beacon of hope, it has now been banished, becoming the […]
Home Sweet Ho-Hum: José Ramón Larraz’s Deadly Manor (Arrow Video)
Rod Lott
February 26, 2020
By Rod Lott. One month after releasing 1998’s Edge of the Axe on Blu-ray, Arrow Video returns to the José Ramón Larraz well with Deadly Manor, another of the late Spanish director’s three career-twilight reciprocations to the slasher trend. The 1990 film stakes another claim on his CV, being his […]
The Magnificent Stranger: Pasolini’s Teorema and its Tradition (Criterion Collection)
Christopher Sharrett
February 24, 2020
By Christopher Sharrett. Many years ago I moved into a small house not far from the university where I took my first tenure-track position. It was a cozy little place on a pleasant street where ancient trees formed a protective, shady bower. It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood that seemed friendly. […]
First Annual VIDI SPACE Film Festival (February 22, 2020, Reston, Virginia)
February 20, 2020
VIDI SPACE’s First Annual Film Festival is being held Saturday, February 22nd, 2020 at the Bow Tie Cinema in the Reston Town Center, Reston, Virginia. Headed by Co-founder/CEO Elizabeth Saint, the festival features work of VIDI SPACE’s streaming platform, launched in 2018 to feature genre works but now spanning shorts and […]
Sound and Vision: Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole
Thomas Puhr
February 20, 2020
By Thomas Puhr. You hear before you see anything: a muffled gurgling noise accompanies the black screen over which the opening credits play. This disorienting audio elicits several questions (Who, or what, is making these noises? Are they sounds of pleasure, discomfort, pain?), all before a single image appears. With […]
Interweaving Korean Film and Performance: A Conversation with Korean Filmmaker and Performance Director Kim Tae-yong
Areum Jeong
February 19, 2020
By Areum Jeong. Korean filmmaker Kim Tae-yong made his directorial debut in 1999 with Memento Mori (directed with Min Kyu-dong), the second installment of the girls’ high school horror film series. The film was hailed as one of the most beautiful horror films in Korean cinema and received Best New Director at […]
Danton Revisited – Ray Danton: The Epitome of Cool (a Career Retrospective) by Joseph Fusco
Tony Williams
February 18, 2020
By Tony Williams. I previously reviewed an earlier version of this book from BearManor Media where I commented that another edition was necessary in view of the lack of listing of the actor’s television achievements. Fusco has not only supplied this in his expanded 516 page new edition but also […]
“The Man with the Million Dollar Smile”: The Douglas MacLean Collection
Jeremy Carr
February 17, 2020
By Jeremy Carr. Douglas MacLean is hardly a household name, even among those who consider themselves ardent enthusiasts of silent cinema. It’s little wonder, then, that prior to One a Minute (1921) and Bell Boy 13 (1923), the two films included in the Undercrank Productions DVD release of The Douglas […]
Chile, a Rough Beast Emerging: Patricio Guzman’s The Cordillera of Dreams
Michael Sandlin
February 12, 2020
By Michael Sandlin. In this, the third and final entry of Chilean exile filmmaker Patricio Guzman’s documentary trilogy poetically examining his native country, he uses the famous Cordillera mountains as his geographical and philosophical centerpiece. From the initial lavish overhead shots of this majestic mountain range we eventually get to […]